Car rental in Poland

What I meant to say was that I'm fine using buses and trains to get around and I believe I could accomplish what I need to do with buses and trains. However, a car would make this particular trip a bit easier as I'm going to be in smaller towns this time around, not big cities. So public transport, although available, will be more time consuming to use.

Secondly, as a solo traveler, the idea of a car and driving in unfamiliar areas doesn't appeal to me that much. If there were 2 people together, one person could help navigate while the other one drove. In my case I've got to keep my attention on the road and traffic, so I can't gawk at scenery anyway. Also Poland's roads are notoriously jammed from what I read.

All in all, I'm leaning towards using public transport unless someone can convince me that a car rental is better.

I'm going to base myself in Katowice for about 3 nights and visit 2 smaller towns, one is near Lodz and one is near Katowice.

Question: Lonely Planet talks quite frankly about car theft in Poland. It's apparently a serious issue in Poland to the extent that they don't recommend parking a car on the street.

This may shock you then: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/ddn-20191104-1

Cars are parked on the streets all the time in Poland. I myself parked my car on the street for over 15 years before I moved to a location with a secure parking and nothing happened. There are over 26 million registered vehicles in Poland and only 10k were reported stolen last year. I think Lonely Planet got stuck in the 80s when car theft was a problem. It's not now.

Out of interest, I googled car theft in the USA and the first result that came up was from FBI and it staid 283 per 100,000 inhabitants - compare it with EU stats in the link...

My biggest concern driving in Poland would be negotiating traffic signage in the Polish language. It has few common words or phrases with English.

I'm not sure I understand - road signs in Poland follow the Vienna convention on road signs and signals so pretty much the same as in the rest of Europe. The only info that would require some knowledge of the Polish language is parking restrictions.

Well, I had never heard of car theft problems, so I didn’t know to worry. I am a solo female traveler and have rented twice in the past 2 years (so not a huge sample): once for 5 days based on Świdnica and once for a couple of days south of Krakow. My biggest fears were about speeding and toll roads (the first time). The second time, I quit worrying. The driving itself was fine and Google maps worked well.

Thank you for the replies.
I’ve never driven in Poland so I didn’t know; it was in the guidebook, that’s all. Thought I’d check. Some hotels also mention “secure parking”.